If you need a program that's not in the repos and the .deb has unsatisfiable dependencies; there's another way of installing it without compiling the source. For example; Grub Customizer (waits for "software wrecking ball" or similar comments ) isn't in the repos and the .deb has incompatibilities with LMDE2. Fortunately, another Distro that I use (MX Linux) has pre-built .debs that are built against Debian libraries. I just needed to search through the packages built against Debian Jessie... which is MX Linux 16 - which are here. In my case, it's the same package that I'm already using in MX Linux, so I trust the source more than I would a .deb from another website.

I installed Mx14.4 (I think) on an old laptop for a friend of mine. Absolutely solid, no problems whatsoever. I have MX16 in VirtualBox just to play with. If there was no Mint, I'd probably use MX. I visit their forums regularly, and they are very good about getting packages compiled for it. Good distro.

“If the government were coming for your TVs and cars, then you'd be upset. But, as it is, they're only coming for your sons.” - Daniel Berrigan